Rage like a mountain There’s nothing new. But there is a new urgency I can’t ignore or discount – to do so would be futile, and frankly, cowardly. It appears that I’ve come to a place of no return with critical parts of my life that have always been up for negotiation. Like the movement of tectonic plates, a deep and radical shifting of my priorities. I find myself, with some regularity these days, shaking with rage. I feel also, and at the same time a profound sense of deep and steady calm, no less intense and alive than the anger. The word Ferocious comes to mind. I have somehow expanded my capacity to contain Ferocity. It feels quite safe in a dangerous sort of way. I’m mindful of a need for care. While I read for my masters. While I make buffalo stew. While I use my chainsaw to cut firewood, practise new bow technique on my cello. While I write, sew, draw, listen to Joni Mitchell and RVW Symphony number 9 for work and pleasure. While I think about wise, strong people who have been denied a voice of their own for far, far too long. It’s difficult to put my finger on the ‘why now’ of this. I think that doesn’t matter. It’s the thundercloud that matters. I will do the things I do for better reasons. I’ll learn to do other things, because they need to be done.
#Water: July The heat of this summer is thick like soup laced with sweat. I’m grumpy about it. I’m not grumpy about the work that’s happening here like a series of intense mini-explosions, each triggering the next. I’d just rather not sweat while I’m working (fan is off when recording). My fuse is short. Happily I have this nearby… I’m reading about, and listening to music written by Russian Composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915), who was doing his best to change the world with music and art until he died at age 43 (good introductory Guardian article here). He did a great deal of thinking about colour, frequency, and energies, which I love. Here’s a wiki quote, In his autobiographical Recollections,Sergei Rachmaninoff recorded a conversation he had had with Scriabin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovabout Scriabin’s association of colour and music. Rachmaninoff was surprised to find that Rimsky-Korsakov agreed with Scriabin on associations of musical keys with colors; himself skeptical, Rachmaninoff made the obvious objection that the two composers did not always agree on the colours involved. Both maintained that the key of D major was golden-brown; but Scriabin linked E-flat major with red-purple, while Rimsky-Korsakov favored blue. However, Rimsky-Korsakov protested that a passage in Rachmaninoff’s opera The Miserly Knight accorded with their claim: the scene in which the Old Baron opens treasure chests to reveal gold and jewels glittering in torchlight is written in D major. Scriabin told Rachmaninoff that “your intuition has unconsciously followed the laws whose very existence you have tried to deny.” How can I not be fascinated? In art school, this was my era – the Symbolists, the Theosophists, the mystics. If I can get the technology ironed out (please write if you know about high-quality motion-sensored sound systems, bluetooth), I’m aiming for November launch of the #Water tour. I’ve got amazing musicians to work with, all with fascinating minds and beautiful voices. Happy happy me. Especially at 10:15pm, when it’s cool out.
Inside Winter It’s the kind of snow there’s a constant More of. The plows and trucks and blowers, out all night long are still going strong at 10am. Cars slide gently sideways to stop signs. Kids and grown-ups both are thoroughly snow-suited, booted, winter-gloved and touqued as they kick & trudge through piled white, falling white, blowing – white everywhere. Dogs leap and dive in it; parked cars have long since disappeared, save for a stripe of colour along their sides. Third-floor roof of the studio building. Looking Southwest across the harbour The coffee tastes better. The blankets are warmer. The books are more intriguing; the art more tantalizing now that there’s time to look deeply. The music has such clean white space around it, it’s almost visible. I’ve dug out my knitting projects. I find myself puttering, replacing buttons, fixing collars, darning holes in old sweaters. Just heard the opening phrase of a new song: 3 cello voices, descending, one rising, to A minor; hold. Then vocals… I’ve said this before, but it’s true enough to say twice: I love what winter does to me.